Scary 911 moment
Discussion
jamieduff1981 said:
nickfrog said:
Steve H said:
OP, make sure the tyres and alignment is 100% before you listen to all the driving gods and blame yourself entirely.
What is a driving god ?If the tyres are cold, road at all damp, tyres at less than 3mm tread depth (in damp/wet weather).
Treat any rear wheel drive car including the 911 with respect otherwise it will bite.
My F10 M5 would be exactly the same but you learn to drive it as it needs to be and feathering the throttle. You can't simply floor it out of a corner if the conditions aren't right
Treat any rear wheel drive car including the 911 with respect otherwise it will bite.
My F10 M5 would be exactly the same but you learn to drive it as it needs to be and feathering the throttle. You can't simply floor it out of a corner if the conditions aren't right
Steve H said:
It's someone that can diagnose a fault in another driver without needing to know if the car the other driver was the cause of his problems. Such a god could easily control a 911 on full throttle in the wet, on diesel, running ditch finders with 2 degrees of toe out on the NSR.
One could argue that maintaining suspension geometry and tyre condition is just as much part of being a "good driver" as car control. 
Steve H said:
jamieduff1981 said:
nickfrog said:
Steve H said:
OP, make sure the tyres and alignment is 100% before you listen to all the driving gods and blame yourself entirely.
What is a driving god ?You can't control the road or any other external factors. People that try to share blame by passing it off to minor contributory factors are always victims and there's always something happening to them.
Going to WOT on a damp road in a powerful RWD car will either end badly or you'll get away with it if somehow lucky. There are no circumstances under which that's an appropriate way to drive the car on that road surface, so to achieve the desired effect (i.e. not repeat it) the most effective thing to do is apply throttle progressively.
Tyre condition, geometry etc will improve or degrade what you can get out of the car with progressive throttle application, but booting the loud pedal is just a bad thing to do regardless.
Steve H said:
jamieduff1981 said:
nickfrog said:
Steve H said:
OP, make sure the tyres and alignment is 100% before you listen to all the driving gods and blame yourself entirely.
What is a driving god ?LordHaveMurci said:
I see you have some driving knowledge Steve! Just out of interest, how much difference would tyres & geo make in that circumstance as jamieduffs replies seem to make a lot of sense? Genuine question.
Obviously it depends on how bad they are but potentially, a huge amount. You can make a car almost undrivable anywhere near its limits with relatively small adjustments to toe and camber. The most likely cause of what the OP describes if it's a geo problem would be significant toe-out at the rear.Edited by kambites on Thursday 4th February 10:21
I nearly spun my 328i on a 2 lane roundabout (my 1st RWD car, about 1yr into ownership)
It has a LSD, no TC and it was a damp cold morning.
I pulled off in 1st in the outside lane, quickly grabbed second which basically acted like a clutch kick, put me into a slide.
I ended up in the inside lane.
It wasn't fast and I was lucky there was no-one next to me.
Nothing wakes you up faster at 7am than going sideways on a roundabout.
Never again will I change gear like that mid roundabout.
It has a LSD, no TC and it was a damp cold morning.
I pulled off in 1st in the outside lane, quickly grabbed second which basically acted like a clutch kick, put me into a slide.
I ended up in the inside lane.
It wasn't fast and I was lucky there was no-one next to me.
Nothing wakes you up faster at 7am than going sideways on a roundabout.
Never again will I change gear like that mid roundabout.
If people have driven modern front or 4 wheel drive cars with all the aids the accelerator is most often seen as the go pedal. It is pressed to the boards for you to go fast....
In a high performance car especially with lower torque and then torque that comes on cam at say 4500-5500 it is easy to get in trouble if the same principle is applied to the accelerator.
The accelerator should be used to FEED the right amount of power in, a bit like old carb cars where you would almost bog the car down if the accelerator was slammed to the floor.
Full throttle on the cold wet roads we have today in a 911 etc is achievable but you have to be very careful. Going form a light throttle to full throttle event he camber of the road can see you trying to pirouette!
I'm still not fully using full throttle in the GT4 yet that often and I had the back end go on a slip road at a very gentle 1'3 throttle...and say 30mph (track tyres don't help)
If you haven't got experience of this sort of car it is well worth doing some training, not to drive it like Chris Harris all the time but to understand how it reacts. They don't go that quick in the wet!! on the road.
In a high performance car especially with lower torque and then torque that comes on cam at say 4500-5500 it is easy to get in trouble if the same principle is applied to the accelerator.
The accelerator should be used to FEED the right amount of power in, a bit like old carb cars where you would almost bog the car down if the accelerator was slammed to the floor.
Full throttle on the cold wet roads we have today in a 911 etc is achievable but you have to be very careful. Going form a light throttle to full throttle event he camber of the road can see you trying to pirouette!
I'm still not fully using full throttle in the GT4 yet that often and I had the back end go on a slip road at a very gentle 1'3 throttle...and say 30mph (track tyres don't help)
If you haven't got experience of this sort of car it is well worth doing some training, not to drive it like Chris Harris all the time but to understand how it reacts. They don't go that quick in the wet!! on the road.
My old 911 is a 2 litre 1969 car and doesn't churn out anywhere near the sort of power that the likes of more modern beasts do, despite being in a fairly high state of tune, yet it requires full concentration at all times and a full understanding of what it is capable of in all conditions. A moments lapse is all it takes for it to bite you in the arse! OP, you just have to drive it as often as possible in as many varying situations as possible as that is the only way to be fully confident, prepared and in control. Some tuition if not used to rear engined Porsches will also pay for itself many times over. You don't want to be the classic 911 newbie sat backwards in a ditch looking startled!
Pan Pan Pan said:
Absolutely. Try driving something like a Caterham 7 in all weathers, and the person doing the driving will begin to understand what true car control is all about. No electronic aids whatsoever in conjunction with non power assisted steering and brakes.
The best option, as someone has already pointed out, would be to do some high performance driving training, with the Porsche option where you can train on the specific type of car you have / will be driving, would be a good start. Better than stuffing your car into an Armco.
Yup. A Caterham has a staggering amount of grip in the dry and a staggering lack of grip in the even ever so slightly damp. It's great fun in the wet though The best option, as someone has already pointed out, would be to do some high performance driving training, with the Porsche option where you can train on the specific type of car you have / will be driving, would be a good start. Better than stuffing your car into an Armco.
To be fair even a MG-TF 160 I had on loan could get out of shape on a roundabout if you decided to lift off at the wrong point. The Porsche even with all its dynamic improvements and 'helpers' is still a rear engine - RWD car and that comes with its own dynamic challenges.
Also who knows, there could have been diesel on the road to add a bit more drama to the mix.
Personally I'm not big on the 'you need driver training la la la' argument but if you are intending on giving your Porsche large 'bootfulls' one of those driver training days at Bedford Autodrome for example (where you can make giant mistakes and not cause any harm) would be a good move.
There's a lot to be said for learning what the limits of your car are (especially if the car is on the faster side of fast) so you can drive with more confidence at 6-7/10's away from the track.
Also who knows, there could have been diesel on the road to add a bit more drama to the mix.
Personally I'm not big on the 'you need driver training la la la' argument but if you are intending on giving your Porsche large 'bootfulls' one of those driver training days at Bedford Autodrome for example (where you can make giant mistakes and not cause any harm) would be a good move.
There's a lot to be said for learning what the limits of your car are (especially if the car is on the faster side of fast) so you can drive with more confidence at 6-7/10's away from the track.
I'm not sure if maybe my car isn't powerful enough (400 BHP RWD) but I've never experienced anything like that with the traction control on. You can quite literally floor it coming off a wet roundabout and all that will happen is the back will wiggle very slightly, then the TCS will immediately sort everything out (and it's not a modern system either). Obviously, it's a different story with it turned off, and I'd imagine a 911 is by nature a lot more difficult to control, but the amount people having serious moments in M5 type cars with TCS on does surprise me.
Get yourself booked at the Silverstone Porsche Experience Center. They will teach you how the systems work using the skid pan in one of their cars. Its great day out and you get to experience what the car can do round a specially designed track with an instructor. I go twice a year and normally wreck a set of tyres in the process
hurricaneone said:
jamieduff1981 said:
As the others have said, it's a sudden "flooring" that caused this, coupled with likely slow reaction times.
My Cerbera has easily enough power to do this, and even on a cold dry day will break traction at around 50mph in 2nd gear as the revs rise taking the torque with it and suddenly the torque applied to the wheels exceeds the traction available. Just wang the accelerator open suddenly and it'll do it in 4th on a damp road. Progressively open the throttles, allowing weight to transfer to the rear wheels and load them up allows much more power to be applied - but even foot to the floor in 3rd will result in loss of traction on a dry road. That's all fine - it's a TVR and anyone who doesn't expect it will soon be a statistic.
My XFR-S on the other hand is far more dangerous. It's a very well sorted chassis and about as much fun as a family car can be to drive. However - the fact is that with over 500lb.ft of torque from a supercharged 5 litre with a very non-German throttle response, no turbo lag to soften inputs, coupled with RWD via an active limited slip differential it will break traction on both rear wheels with either sudden OR wide throttle opening from pretty much any RPM in the wet, which can be quite alarming at first, yawing the car quite violently before the full-granny-mode DSC even wakes up. The DSC will prevent any drama if the over-use of power is gradual, but doing what you did OP will have the car snaking its way up the road with both rear tyres alight easily.
In the nicest possible way - you are still getting used to a high performance car - you've done the worst thing possible. Damp road (apart from aquaplaning potential, I personally find that a damp road is as slippery as a full wet one - if the tyres can disperse the water then it's entirely down to whether the compound grips the tarmac or not. Dry good, water molecules in between tyre and tarmac bad), low gear, revs just where a decent sized naturally aspirated engine makes its best torque or thereabouts and then you wellied the throttle wide open without managing the weight transfer.
If you're reactions are good (and you have experience) you can prevent the fishtailing-come-spin by undoing the stupid thing you just did - i.e. immediately put the throttle back where you had it before making the mistake. Dipping the clutch if you have 3 pedals works too. Both of these need to be done before the yaw angle gets too far. You also need to be right on the ball with your corrective steering and unwinding thereof. Many people catch the first yaw but are too slow to unwind it as the back end comes back in again and they swing the other way through a combination of angular momentum the car builds up and their own steering input encouraging it.
What you need to do is explore what the car can cope with gradually. Open the throttle a little bit more each time you leave a roundabout in various conditions and you'll learn what the car can do. Just going straight for full throttle is something that only a slow car lets you away with.
Thanks, great input.My Cerbera has easily enough power to do this, and even on a cold dry day will break traction at around 50mph in 2nd gear as the revs rise taking the torque with it and suddenly the torque applied to the wheels exceeds the traction available. Just wang the accelerator open suddenly and it'll do it in 4th on a damp road. Progressively open the throttles, allowing weight to transfer to the rear wheels and load them up allows much more power to be applied - but even foot to the floor in 3rd will result in loss of traction on a dry road. That's all fine - it's a TVR and anyone who doesn't expect it will soon be a statistic.
My XFR-S on the other hand is far more dangerous. It's a very well sorted chassis and about as much fun as a family car can be to drive. However - the fact is that with over 500lb.ft of torque from a supercharged 5 litre with a very non-German throttle response, no turbo lag to soften inputs, coupled with RWD via an active limited slip differential it will break traction on both rear wheels with either sudden OR wide throttle opening from pretty much any RPM in the wet, which can be quite alarming at first, yawing the car quite violently before the full-granny-mode DSC even wakes up. The DSC will prevent any drama if the over-use of power is gradual, but doing what you did OP will have the car snaking its way up the road with both rear tyres alight easily.
In the nicest possible way - you are still getting used to a high performance car - you've done the worst thing possible. Damp road (apart from aquaplaning potential, I personally find that a damp road is as slippery as a full wet one - if the tyres can disperse the water then it's entirely down to whether the compound grips the tarmac or not. Dry good, water molecules in between tyre and tarmac bad), low gear, revs just where a decent sized naturally aspirated engine makes its best torque or thereabouts and then you wellied the throttle wide open without managing the weight transfer.
If you're reactions are good (and you have experience) you can prevent the fishtailing-come-spin by undoing the stupid thing you just did - i.e. immediately put the throttle back where you had it before making the mistake. Dipping the clutch if you have 3 pedals works too. Both of these need to be done before the yaw angle gets too far. You also need to be right on the ball with your corrective steering and unwinding thereof. Many people catch the first yaw but are too slow to unwind it as the back end comes back in again and they swing the other way through a combination of angular momentum the car builds up and their own steering input encouraging it.
What you need to do is explore what the car can cope with gradually. Open the throttle a little bit more each time you leave a roundabout in various conditions and you'll learn what the car can do. Just going straight for full throttle is something that only a slow car lets you away with.
Edited by jamieduff1981 on Wednesday 3rd February 20:38
My thinking is ESP will help a lot, but it needs a certain amount of time and space to operate based on the hand you deal it, it only has what it has to work with and faster cars, with more challenging weight distribution, like a 911 give it more to do.
I dont think I want a Cerbera, I would drive it and treat it like the weird neighbour does his dog in Friday Night Dinner, or for a less obscure reference, Arkwright from open all Hours and his till.
I dont think I want a Cerbera, I would drive it and treat it like the weird neighbour does his dog in Friday Night Dinner, or for a less obscure reference, Arkwright from open all Hours and his till.
mondeoman said:
Riiiight.
Straight line, full throttle acceleration, in the damp, from 4k rpm (pretty much heading for peak torque in an N/A), and its the cars fault?? Really??
Weight over the rear aids accel and grip, not the other way round,
If he'd blarted out of a corner, at speed and booted it, then yes, weight at the rear would be the pendulum, but not in this case (unless truth is not being told about when he floored it)
You probably want to re-read my post again, not sure I even mentioned it was the car only as the root cause. The 911 will swing like a pendulum even in a straight line if you lose the back end, this seems to be the early stages of what the OP was experiencing....fortunately, he managed to gain control.Straight line, full throttle acceleration, in the damp, from 4k rpm (pretty much heading for peak torque in an N/A), and its the cars fault?? Really??
Weight over the rear aids accel and grip, not the other way round,
If he'd blarted out of a corner, at speed and booted it, then yes, weight at the rear would be the pendulum, but not in this case (unless truth is not being told about when he floored it)
Weight over the rear will not aid any driver if the car is out of control, its pretty much expected it will swing out much more than a front engine car and in essence what catches most 911 drivers out, as is the case here.
shambolic said:
Pish. My wife's SLK diesel does the same in the wet/damp. It's no beast but if you "floor it" as the OP said coming of a roundabout, the back end fishtails about.
It's only 200 odd brake and engine at the front but basic physics say if car is slightly sideways and you push it out further using the throttle, then it will spin.
It's like jujitsu I use momentum, fulcrums and my weight to shift an opponent into a position I want. But if I go to far then I lose the position.
Drive smarter and input gentler.
No real comparison, your SLK diesel (presumably Auto) in this instance will be in the kick down phase of acceleration therefore will fishtail. Equally, your SLK is front engined and completely different weight distribution to a 911 which you acknowledge. It's only 200 odd brake and engine at the front but basic physics say if car is slightly sideways and you push it out further using the throttle, then it will spin.
It's like jujitsu I use momentum, fulcrums and my weight to shift an opponent into a position I want. But if I go to far then I lose the position.
Drive smarter and input gentler.
Hardly 'pish'....in addition, the OP asked for thoughts and experiences from 911 owners!
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